1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to an interface for entering Common Music Notation (CMN) using a computer and, more particularly, to an interface that does this quickly and naturally.
2. Description of the Related Art
In conventional techniques, there has been a problem of easily and efficiently composing music by a user/composer on a computer. Another problem has been automatic recognition of unconstrained handwritten text. Statistical methods, such as hidden Markov models (HMMs) have been used successfully for speech recognition and they have recently been applied to the problem of handwriting recognition as well, with great success.
However, prior to the present invention, there has been no attempt of making use of large vocabulary handwriting recognition for the purpose of creating a music notation system.
Further, the conventional music composing systems and methods which employ a computer typically use a keyboard and a mouse as an input device in a xe2x80x9cdrag and dropxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cpick and placexe2x80x9d manner. That is, to enter a note, a menu is accessed by the user through a mouse and taken somewhere (e.g., a music sheet on a display screen). However, such a technique is very cumbersome, slow, and causes the user much fatigue and inconvenience.
One major problem of xe2x80x9cpick and placexe2x80x9d systems with musical notation systems is the fact that there are many hundreds of shapes used in musical common notation and due to the great size and the difficulty of categorizing them in a hierarchical manner, users generally have a very difficult time finding the proper symbol from a list of hundreds. The author of the music notation knows perfectly well what symbol he/she is writing. However, in the process of finding that symbol in hundreds of possible symbols, the thread of his/her thought is torn and the effective artistic mood is destroyed at the moment of writing the notes. For this reason, most current computer notation softwares are not useful for on-the-fly creation of music and are only used as editing tools after the music is written on paper. Thus, prior to the present invention since the author cannot create the music right on a digital pad using a stylus as he/she would on paper and cannot see a clean result and play back the music through a synthesizer immediately.
In view of the foregoing and other problems, disadvantages, and drawbacks of the conventional systems and techniques, the present invention has been devised, and it is an object of the present invention to provide a structure and method for writing common music notation using an input device such as a digital pen, a writing stylus, etc.
To attain the object(s) above, according to one aspect of the invention, a computer-implemented method (and system) for composing music, includes launching a menu based on an input from an input device, selectively inputting musical notation with the input device based on the menu items and unconstrained handwriting by a composer, and displaying the musical notation.
Thus, with the unique and unobvious aspects of the present invention, a composer can compose music easily and efficiently. The composer can enter notes commonly used by merely clicking (tapping) on the palette and further can simply write (i.e., handwrite) on the tablet items which are not so common such as predetermined markings and terms such as xe2x80x9ccrescendoxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9candantexe2x80x9d, the clef sign, the timing/pitch of the music, etc. This makes the interface very much like a paper interface (e.g., with which people are accustomed) in which a composer would traditionally use pen/pencil and paper to compose music. However, unlike a paper interface, the invention allows the user to quickly compose music and hear the music immediately to hear what the music sounds like.
Hence, the conventional process may be eliminated using the present invention since the author may create the music right on a digital pad using a stylus as he/she would on paper with the added advantage of being able to see a clean result and play back the music through a synthesizer right away. This makes the system a creation tool versus a mere authoring tool.